Category: Helium
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The Explosion of Blockchain + Meatspace
At the recent TIPIN Summit put on by Lattice Capital, it became apparent that blockchain + meatspace projects are about to hit the mainstream of the cryptogalaxy. With panels featuring everyone from Helium, the largest and most successful player in the space, to Anode Labs announcing the launch of the React Network (tokenizing Virtual Power…
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Helium HIP 70 Explained In Pictures
HIP 70 is simple. We (the Helium Community) are moving from doing everything ourselves to farming out a few things to experts. Here’s what it looks like. Let’s start with the current system. Every action on one blockchain that tries to do everything and is getting bogged down: Yes, I know Validators aren’t in that graphic.…
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An Off Grid Water Monitoring System
I got into Helium to deploy and use a LoRa Wide Area Network (you can read about that here). Along with everyone else, I then got caught up in the wild gold rush of ’20-’21, deploying hotspots and earning HNT, helping clients do the same, and occasionally just looking around and wondering at the madness…
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What Is The State Of Play In The World of DeWi?
Helium is the project that started it all, but the DeWi space is rapidly growing. With that growth come questions, mysteries, and opportunities. New players, both known and unknown, are entering the mix. As the idea of 5G starts to really get legs, one question you should constantly be asking yourself is, “What is the…
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Unlock Helium 5G: My Rooftop Installation
How hard is it to deploy a Helium 5G miner? There are at least three aspects to this: Physical, Legal, and Risk/Reward. Let’s start with the easiest one, which is the physical installation. As it turns out, a Helium 5G miner is not that different than a LoRa miner to physically install. Just like a…
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Is Helium 5G Safe To Deploy?
As we all begin the next mad rush to deploy Helium 5G miners, one of the questions I hear asked is, “Is 5G safe?” Let’s start with defining what 5G means; it’s NOT 5 gigahertz. In this case, 5G refers to the Fifth Generation of mobile networks. 5G is a set of rules determining who can…
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Weather XM — An Easy Way to Stack Your Pole
With the rise of Helium, many of us were introduced to the new concept of combining a blockchain application with actual physical real world usage and tokenizing the incentives. I call that combo blockchain + meatspace, and Helium is just the beginning. As most of us who got serious about Helium quickly realized, the name…
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How Do You Assess A Blockchain + Meatspace Project?
How do you know if a new blockchain + meatspace (B+M) project (like Helium, or GEODNet, or Planetwatch) is likely to succeed? What are the key indicators of success or failure? Since joining the Helium Network when the Hotspot count was around 7k, I’ve gotten to see what it’s like to be part of a…
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The Transition to Light Hotspots — What Happened?
TL;DR Despite a massive change to the Network, at a macro level we’re more or less where we were (up 3%) with the number of Hotspots getting rewarded for beaconing, and down 4% for number of Hotspots getting rewarded for witnessing. The rewards themselves are lower, but that’s always the long term trend of any…
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An (Early) Rough Guide to Setting Up GEODNET
The Helium Network demonstrated just how powerful tokenized radio coverage could be, and a host of other companies are rolling out wireless networks, from WiFi to satellite to cell, using token incentives. GEODNET is one of those companies. GEODNET allows you to set up a Hyfix Base Station in order to improve GPS accuracy. Most…